Topic: Nintendo admits its casual focus with the gaming industry has failed.

http://www.gaminglives.com/2012/05/02/ninty-admit-that-casual...

A few years ago, Nintendo were storming the beaches of new gaming frontiers, taking on the elusive ‘mainstream’ market, with resounding success. Casualties, however, were manifold as wounded gamers and long-time Ninty fans felt discarded and overlooked as the company focused on opening up a new market, quite forgetting the hardcore fans who had carried them thus far.

Many of us quietly questioned their tactics, wondering just how long Nintendo could sustain this success and retain the public interest once the novelty factor of their gimmicky hardware and casual games had worn off and the white box had been relegated to stair-cupboards everywhere. In the meantime, hardcore fans became disenchanted, frustrated, and even angry, and some gave up altogether, but Nintendo pushed on with more casual, family gaming. Until now.

In a surprising speech to investors, Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, admitted that the company’s focus on reaching new consumers and the family friendly market may well have placed Nintendo in the more precarious position in which it now finds itself. As we reported a few days ago, Nintendo recently posted a financial loss for the first time since it gave up on cards and concentrated on console gaming, and it would seem that the company have taken a long, hard look at why that might be.

“We could not adequately create the situation that such new consumers played games frequently or for long, consistent periods. As a result, we could not sustain a good level of profit,” Iwata told investors. He also acknowledged the effect the firm’s re-directed focus had on their core fans: “Regrettably, what we prioritised in order to reach out to the new audience was a bit too far from what we prioritised for those who play games as their hobby. Consequently, we presume some people felt that the Wii was not a game system for them or they were not willing to play with the Wii even though some compelling games had been released.”

That would appear to be the sound of a penny finally dropping… let’s hope that there is still enough fire in the bellies of the wounded Ninty core to care.

I'm so glad Nintendo has learned from its mistakes.

What do you guys think of this?

I think they haven't learned from their mistakes until they actually prove (by doing) that they're willing to correct them.

If they launch the Wii U with a strong launch line up, sort out some third party support and keep a steady release schedule going, I'll believe them then. Until that time, I'll assume they haven't changed.

This. Granted, admitting your mistakes is the first step towards fixing them.

Wow, I never really saw it as that.
They were still making good games, but I guess that if appealing to Western audiences is the most important thing to do to make money, then I really don't have much to say.
.
Or is it that they left behind the "hardcore" fan with things like the lack of localization for games, like Mother 3? Or could it be that the emphasis on party games really made the "hardcore" fans feel left out?
.
Now the real question is, is it too late?

True - my concern is just that Nintendo have claimed to see their mistakes in the past, but didn't end up doing anything about it.

For everything bad that happens to Nintendo blame Iwata. He is the worst thing to ever happen to the company.

^{I thoroughly hate his decisions.}

the amount of Citation Needed is absurd right now

I mean...I'm more than willing to make fun of old people in charge who are too stubborn to admit things would be better without them but 3 sentence GRR THIS MAN IS DE WORST I AM VAGUE is just kinda annoying.

I agree. Things haven't been going swimingly for Nintendo, until recently, but I think Iwata ended up handling the situation well, IMO. He gave himself a huge voluntary pay cut for goodness sake. Again, I know that Ninty's made their mistakes, but if the current state of the 3DS is any indication, they've undoubtedly learned from them.

Most of Nintendo's problems since Iwata took over have been the same problems they had before, online aside. I mean, I had an N64, and I adore that console, but they basically had to be saved by Rare half the time and 3rd party support was just incredibly bad and the decision to stay with cartridges etc.

Which is why it still baffles me that we don`t have a proper messaging system yet,in the year 2012.

Sounds like yet another reason to rename the Wii U. :3

Up until the Wii's success, Iwata was screwing up everywhere. Take the Gamecube for an example: Iwata was too greedy to begin to support online for the system. Same case for the Wii. Iwata didn't want to spend money for online because he felt it wasn't needed. Limited online for Wii and no online for GameCube was Iwata's fault. The Wii's limited online everything (DLC, communities, friend codes, etc.), Iwata's doing.

Nintendo was doing just fine before he came around. NES, SNES and GameBoy were huge successes. The Nintendo 64 on the other hand did terrible in every department.

Iwata says: customers do not want online games.

This is honestly not that bad, at least you had A sentence between these sentences that contradict each other.

That was in 2004, when he was actually right, at least in Japan.

You mean how the NES, SNES and Gameboy were successes and the N64 wasn't (when compared that is)? That was before Iwata came along. Iwata was hired during the N64's lifetime.

My point was exactly that hence I said GameCube in my previous post.

yeah, someone important in a major japanese video game company is too stubborn to think more about the west, that's never happened, oh wait that's the major issue of every major japanese gaming company right now.

Also, something interesting I literally just thought of...would Hiroshi Yamauchi be this stubborn for online gaming? I'm actually interested in if he has ever really voiced his opinion on this.

But his thinking was correct. The Majority of People in Japan never cared about online gameplay, at least at that time. Also, looking at the date, that was before Halo 2 came out and proved to a lot of people that console games could have good online play, so chances are, even refering to the west, he was right.

Yes because Sony hesitated for years whether or not to add online functionality to their games/consoles. Let alone Sega.

^{For you slow ones that was sarcasm.}

"We could not adequately create the situation that such new consumers played games frequently or for long, consistent periods"

that seems to me a 2 part problem and one can not solve problems [of that scope] effectivly 2 at a time.
Problem 1; getting (previously) non gamers to play (get them involved with something they were not previosuly interested in at all),
problem 2, getting them to play for long periods of time consistently or frequently.

ALso I agree fully with Chrono_cross and Poke tune, their recent track record shows no signs of change except online sales and that is only because it solves another problem they have no answer to... (2nd hand sales killing thier profits)
Nuff said.

He was never right. Maybe for Japan's sake but not the west's. Halo 2 came out in 2004 which gave Nintendo years to catch up. But Nintendo didn't and obviously choose not to with a low budget for the Wii's entire life. Look at Super Mario Strikers and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

@SyFy
Exactly. The only reason the Wii Shop Channel is as good as it is, is because it had money involved and was an easy way to make it too. If the Wii's overall online functionalities were as half as good as their marketplace, this conversation wouldn't exist.